


Bloody Hands

by Cdelphiki



Series: Whumptober 2018 [2]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Robin: Son of Batman (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Assassin Damian Wayne, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Damian Wayne Feels, Flashbacks, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Minor Character Death, Prompt Fic, Whumptober 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-02
Updated: 2018-10-02
Packaged: 2019-07-18 22:25:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16128005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cdelphiki/pseuds/Cdelphiki
Summary: Damian was having a good night.  Sure, he kind of snuck away to patrol alone, and yeah his Father was going to be royally pissed at him when he returned home, but he was having a lot of fun.  Or he was.  Until he came across a man and learned the hard lesson that you can't save everyone.WhumptoberDay 2: Bloody Hands





	Bloody Hands

Flying through the sky was one of Damian’s favorite things.It’s something he picked up from Grayson, he supposed, during their time as Batman and Robin.The man’s love for flying was infectious, and once Damian had felt the rush from jumping off a building without firing his grapple first, he was hooked. 

Even more thrilling was flying through the sky on his own, without Batman breathing down his back.Damian enjoyed patrolling with his father.He did, but the man was overbearing and controlling.Sometimes it was liberating to be trusted to patrol alone. 

Well, okay.So maybe he wasn’t exactly _trusted_ to patrol alone, but Father hadn’t hacked into his comm to demand he return to the cave yet, so Damian was taking that as permission to continue ahead. 

Besides, Father allowed the others to patrol alone, so why should he be any different?

Right.Because Father was convinced that Damian would kill people if left unsupervised.

It didn’t matter that Damian swore not to kill.That he was trying hard.That he had reigned in his temper.It didn’t mean anything that he’d not even used excessive force once in _months_.All that mattered was that Damian _had_ killed in the past, and Batman could never trust him because of it.

Damian huffed.Father was impossible. 

The young Robin sat down on the edge of the building he had been about to leap off and gazed out over the city.

It was a fairly quiet night, considering the good weather.Usually beautiful nights had far more crime than the awful, muggy or rainy nights, but Damian wasn’t complaining.He could actually see the stars tonight, barely through the light pollution, so any chance to sit on a roof and admire the beauty of Gotham at night was one he’d enjoy. 

Of course, though, life decided to mess it all up. 

A terrified shriek drew Damian’s attention to two alleys over.On instinct, he was on his feet and leaping to the next roof before he’d even registered what he heard.Within a minute, Damian was landing in the alley next to a woman, who was pressed up against the wall, screaming down at a man lying on the ground. 

And for a second, the scene made no sense. 

The woman was screaming something incoherent and the man was motionless.Then Damian saw the blood starting the pool. 

Keeping his eye on the hysterical woman as best he could, Damian knelt beside the man and began hunting for the wound.

“Oracle,” he said, tapping his comm and opening a line for the first time that night, “I need an ambulance to the 5400 block of pine.”

“ _Copy that, Robin_ ,” the woman’s computerized voice sounded in his ear, “ _And just so you know, Batman is not happy with you_.” 

“Tt,” Damian huffed as he began rolling the man to his back, “My father’s happiness is of no-”

“ _Robin?_ ”

“Shit,” Damian breathed, taking in the large, deep stab wound in the man’s neck, “Carotid Artery has been severed.” 

How did this even happen?Had the woman stabbed him?Had he stabbed himself?Where was the knife?

Damian thought all this as he quickly put his hands against the man’s neck, attempting to stifle the blood flow.He only have a few minutes, at best. 

There was so much blood. 

_His hands shook.There was so much blood.Blood everywhere.It was hot and sticky and everywhere._

_In his hair._

_On his clothes._

_Under his fingernails._

_Damian would never be clean again._

“How did this happen?” Robin demanded, pushing down the discomfort having blood on his hands caused.His hands were the only thing between this man and death. 

“He- He,” The woman choked, “Oh god!”

Robin growled, putting more pressure on the wound.His normally green gloves were coated in red, now.Only small flecks of green still visible. 

_His knife slid effortlessly into the servant.It was likely painless, due to how sharp the blade was.Well.Nearly painless.But even that was too merciful for a man who had dishonored and betrayed the Al Ghul’s._

_Damian had been pitted against this man to test his skills and to execute him for his crimes.He had nearly lost by all appearances, when his sword fell to the ground, but of course Damian had no fewer than a dozen knives on his person._

_Honestly.He could kill this man with his bare hands._

“What. Happened,” Damian growled, turning his gaze to the woman, who was now sitting on the ground, whimpering.” 

“I don’t know,” she cried, “he just, just did that.I- I don’t even know him.” 

“ _Robin_ ,” Oracle sounded in his ear, “ _Medical is four minutes out._ ” 

He won’t make it.He’s going to-

_The servant looked down at him with a mixture of fear and amusement._

_“Tt,” Damian had said, “I shall take great pleasure in eviscerating you.”_

_“You are but an infant.This entire cult is insane, worshipping a three-year-old such as yourself.”_

_“I am four,” Damian had corrected, “and you shall perish for your words.”_

The pulse under Damian’s hands was getting weaker.Slower.It had been approximately three minutes since his artery was severed.Chances of survival were next to zero, at this point, and yet, Damian couldn’t remove his hands. 

He’d promised Father.

Promised Grayson.Promised everyone he’d be a hero.And heroes saved people. 

Someone was chattering in his ear, but Damian couldn’t focus.All he wanted to hear were the sirens, but they were still too far in the distance. 

_Damian had hesitated._

_The servant was not an expert swordsman._

_He knew enough to defend himself, but he was not an expert like Damian.He was not an assassin._

_There had been an opening.The perfect opportunity to thrust his sword right through the man’s heart while his sword was off to the side, carelessly swung too far to defend himself._

_Damian had hesitated._

_And for that he paid dearly._

The woman was crying again. 

Robin just wanted her to shut up.She wasn’t the one holding the man’s neck together.The one kneeling in the thick pool of blood.

_It was self defense.When the servant took advantage of his hesitation.His weakness.He knocked Damian’s sword out of his hands._

_He had no choice but to pull the knife and lunge forward._

_Swords were a honorable weapon, sword fighting a beautiful art, but they sucked for close combat.If Damian could stay within an arms reach, the servant would have a difficult time doing damage._

_The servant would have to resort to hacking at Damian, and such moves would be easy to counter._

Sirens faded into the soundscape, offering a brief glimmer of hope for Damian.Maybe they’d make it in time.

If only the knife had gone in a few inches to the left, the man would have been fine.Still in desperate need of medical attention, but not bleeding out this quickly. 

_Damian’s knife slid effortlessly into his servant’s neck._

_He had learned the anatomy of a human body six months prior.He knew exactly where to place his knife.Exactly which spots to target to ensure a quick and simple death._

_Severing the carotid artery was a piece of cake._

_The servant fell to the ground, dragging Damian with him, as the child had been on the servant’s back as a means of defense in such close range._

Someone was talking to Robin.They were in his face.

He- He should answer.Say something. 

Gloved hands gripped his shoulders and gently pulled him back, the hard pressure he’d been applying ceased as he was lifted up to his feet. 

Damian looked down at his hands.There was so much blood.

_There was so much blood.Blood everywhere._

_It was sticky.It was hot.It wasn’t his._

_His hands shook as he stared at the red substance that coated every inch of his hands._

_How had so much gotten on him?_

_Damian wanted to be sick._

“I-” Robin said, looking up to meet Batman’s cold gaze. 

Then Damian stiffened, realizing how all this looked to Batman’s perspective.

He came on scene to find his ‘murder baby,’ as Todd so rudely referred to him, lying over the corpse of a man killed by a blade, covered in the man’s blood.

Covered just like when he’d actually-

_Damian held back his tears until he was in the bathroom alone._

_When he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, blood smeared across his face._

_All Damian could see in the mirror was the blood of the man he’d killed._

_The man he’d murdered._

_Then Damian was sick._

“Robin,” Batman growled, a tinge of worry in his voice, “get in the Batmobile.” 

_It took an hour to scrub away all the blood._

_An hour and Damian had scrubbed his own skin raw.And yet, he still wasn’t clean._

_He could still feel the hot sticky mess, still taste the blood in his mouth, smell the vile in his nose._

_Damian was a murderer._

_A monster._

_He would never be clean again._

Next thing Damian knew, a cold glass of water was being pressed into his hands.His now bare hands. 

Cold condensation dripped down his hands as Damian blinked the sluggish haze from his vision.He was sitting in the cave, on the medical cot, the top half of his uniform missing from his body. 

Finding the straw with his mouth, Damian took a long, slow sip of the cool refreshing water.It rinsed down the dry raspy feeling from his throat he hadn’t noticed before and helped clear the fog from his brain. 

“Go take a shower,” Father said, not even looking over at Damian from where he was sitting at the Batcomputer.Pennyworth had given him the water, he now realized. 

“Father, I didn’t-” Damian tried, just to be interrupted by Bruce.

“Shower.Then we’ll talk.” 

Damian spent an hour in the shower.Pennyworth had done a decent job removing all trace of blood from his body, but Damian still enjoyed having the cold water wash over his body.It helped relax him.Allowed him to think and forget all at the same time. 

It bought him time.  

When he finally emerged from the showers, dressed in the fresh pajamas Pennyworth had prepared, Father was no where to be found.Wandering around the Manor, Damian found the man standing in his Father’s study, looking out over the gardens. 

“Father,” Damian said curtly as he entered the room.He had practiced his defense half a dozen times.He was ready to out argue Father, if necessary, to prove his innocence. 

“Come here, son,” Bruce said tiredly, motioning with his hand for Damian to join his father by the window. 

Damian obeyed wordlessly, yet cautiously.Never before had Father started a lecture about morals with beckoning Damian to stand next to him and calling him ‘ _son.’_ Perhaps this was Father’s way of softening the blow. 

Was… was father sending him back?Kicking him out?Had Damian just ‘crossed the line,’ in Father’s eyes? 

When Damian stopped at his fathers side, he looked out over the Manor grounds and saw what his Father had been observing.

Thousands of lightning bugs flitted across the grounds and into the woods, their asynchronous lights creating a show for anyone up at this hour. 

“When I was a child,” Father began, placing a hand on Damian’s shoulder, “my father and I would catch fireflies in a jar and then tell stories by their light for hours.”

Damian scrunched his eyebrows as he continued to observe the gardens.

“Those carefree moments are something I cherish,” the man continued, “There’s something relaxing about thinking back to happy childhood memories, something humanizing about remembering better times.” 

The young assassin turned his head to look up at his father, his confusion freely displayed on his face.“Father, what does-”

Bruce squeezed his shoulder, gently, to hush him, then carried on, “I’ve failed to provide you with memories like that, Damian.”

“I’ve only been living here for two years,” Damian tried.

Father shook his head and knelt down before Damian, turning the boy so they were facing each other fully.“Son,” he said, placing both hands on his shoulders, “I am sorry for what you had to see tonight.For what you had to experience.I wish we could save everyone, but we can’t.I’m proud of you for trying.” 

Damian shook his head, willing the tears he felt stinging to be released to stay in their ducts.He was not a child.He would not _cry_ over something as trivial as this. 

“You did well, Robin.You should be proud, too.” 

“No,” Damian whispered, quickly losing the fight with his tears, “You don’t understand.” 

Bruce frowned and brushed away the nonexistent dust from Damian’s shoulder.“What don’t I understand?”

“I-” Damian rasped, looking down at his hands. “I’ve killed people.Exactly like that.With- With these-”

Damian yelped when he felt himself be yanked suddenly into a bone crushing hug, then lost the battle entirely as sobs wracked his body.“I thought,” he hiccuped into his father’s chest, “Maybe if I could save people, if I was Robin, it’d go away.But- but my hands.And-”

“Shh,” Father soothed, rubbing at Damian’s back as he rocked his son slightly, “Hush, son.”

“How can you be proud of me when I’m a murderer?” Damian asked, his throat thick as he struggled to swallow the hot, thick saliva crying had created.“I’m a monster,” he whispered. 

“You,” Bruce said forcefully, halting his rocking to squeeze Damian into a tighter hug, “are my son.I will always be proud of my son.”

Damian shook his head again. “I don’t deserve-”

Father cut him off with a sharp, “Damian Thomas Wayne, you deserve so much more than what I have to give you.Anything you did with the league, and as a result of their brainwashing, is on the conscious of Ra’s and Talia Al Ghul.Not yours.Do you hear me?”

“But,” Damian said, pulling away from his father’s grasp, “I’ve done so much.”Damian held his hands back out and looked down at them.He could still see the blood.The blood of every victim of his.Of every death he was responsible for.All 42 of them.43, now. 

“Damian,” he said again, gently, taking the child’s hands in his own, “You are such a good person, so kind and gentle.  I don’t believe for a second you are responsible for what you were forced to do while with the League.  I only hope you can come to the same realization one day.”  

Bruce pulled Damian’s hands up to his face and kissed each one softly before letting go and standing to his feet. 

The man turned to face the gardens once more, and Damian stayed still, staring down at his hands.

They felt a bit cleaner, now. 

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](https://cdelphiki.tumblr.com)


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